Rish Outfield's reviews
From my notes: "Now that's friggin' disgusting!"
A quasi-American family moves into a house located...guess where? Sounds sweet, don't it? But within its walls lives a deranged rotting murderer, who constantly excretes some kind of maggoty ectoplasm, but apparently leaves no trace behind when he hides again.
Lucio Fulci returns. He torments this poor Aryan boy (who he apparently doused with live scorpions in the movie Manhattan Baby) in a way that would be deemed unacceptable were it an American film. Perhaps that's some of the draw his films have.
Early on, this was a dead-on, straight-faced ripoff of The Shining. Factors included that it was a house with a horrible history that a three-member family moves into, and the boy communicates with an imaginary friend no one else can see that warns him to get out. The child is exposed to some seriously messed-up visions, as did a certain Danny Torrence in Kubrick's movie. As the film progressed, it veered farther and farther from it, to the point that I finally decided I wouldn't give it a Rips Off Skull.
There was a neat image in a photo of the house at the very beginning. The haunted house itself was really unusual in that it was brightly lit and colored a pleasant sky blue. Except for the dead tree out front, it looked quite charming, actually.
The woman who played Mom was quite pretty. But who in their right mind would name a child Bob? You know, I went to school for 19 years, and I NEVER met a kid named Bob. (Funny, I rented this absolutely unwatchable French film called Possession, and they too had named their little boy Bob. It must be a foreign thing).
You get that strange, surreal logic black hole here that Fulci's films seem to have. For example, the mother has a horrible experience/vision in the house. So, when her son claims to have one two or three days later, she naturally doesn't believe him. There's a grave built into the floor of the den, and the husband says it's quite common in that part of the world, "something you'll have to get used to." Riiight. Also, who is Ann? Why do we get several closeups of her eyes? Why won't she say where she's from? Why was Ann soaking up a huge smear of blood like it was no big deal? Who ate the fruzenglasia? WHERE DOES ALL THE BLOOD GO? Bodies mysteriously vanishing I believe, but all traces and gallons of blood?
For the most part, however, it was a well-done film. It uses the widescreen frame pretty nicely. It also features really garish rack focuses and zooms, but effectively. The theme music, by Walter Rizzati makes me do the goblin dance (something that had me institutionalized the first time doctors saw me do it). The story is definitely easier to follow than The Beyond, and it was still quite scary. And brutally gory, of course; it was released Unrated, apparently (big surprise, kids). The bat scene was pretty gross. Lucio also presents us with a copious amount of maggots! There must be people out there who just can't get enough of them.* There's a HIDEOUS doll featured in the film. I've mentioned that Fulci was a sick, sick man, right? Along with said insidious-looking doll, is a frightening-looking little girl. The dubbing is worse than anything Hitler did. Was this filmed in America or Italy? The interiors were shot in Rome. But there a box of Fiddle Faddle can be seen in the background–evidence that it HAD to have been shot in America!
Line To Remember: "Anne, mommy said you aren't dead. Is that true?"
*And there, once again, we get into the personal preference of Horror fans. I am flat-out terrified of cockroaches and flat-out repulsed by maggots. To a roommate of mine, these are no big deal, but a furry little rat sends him screaming to the bathroom sink. The aforementioned use of dolls scare days off my lifespan, whereas tyranist holds moths and clowns in the same regard. I suppose that's what makes life interesting, those little differences.

The tyranist's thoughts
Years ago, I made a choice to buy a charming old house that had been around for over a hundred years and that had pretty unusual architecture for the area. I love this house. I'm happy living here. But at 1:00 AM having just finished watching House by the Cemetery, I know I'm going to be sprinting up the stairs to bed after I've turned the lights off. Did I mention that I'm only two blocks from a cemetery?
I miss the '80s. Even Fulci's messed up version. I especially miss horror flicks made in the '80s. I haven't been scared this badly by a movie in a long time. Although, now that I think about it, the thing that they did really right was to not show the evil creature until the end of the movie. Up until the big reveal, I was terrified, but I have to admit that once he showed up, it just wasn't the same. A gross hand and arm here, glowing eyes there, and creepy noises all around were enough to scare me where a creature probably could not have.
About my only complaint about the movie is that the trumped up triangle between the husband, the wife, and the nanny seemed bizarre and always fake. With a wife that good looking, well, it would be unforgivable. I think that Fulci really did it to increase the amount of tension, but I found it more distracting than helpful. There is apparently a lot of tension between the two in some cut of the film, but I don't think I saw that cut and I still found their actions annoying.
The gore was pretty great. It takes a while to really get around to the death and the killing (other than the obligatory death in the first five minutes), but once they get started, it's done really well.
I was a little disappointed by the ending, but it still wasn't the total betrayal that I expected.
This is a hard one to recommend. The plot is pretty standard and the production values typically Italian. The gore is about the only thing that makes this one stand out and that isn't going to get very many people to watch it. I suppose you know if this is one you'll like. Good luck finding it if it is.